Posted By John Henderson On February 20, 2010 @ 12:59 pm In 2010 Vancouver Olympics,Olympics | No Comments

VANCOUVER — Days off in the Olympics are about as common as sunny days and fortunately I got them both on the same afternoon Friday.

When you’re running around Vancouver, Stanley Park teases you like a sultry mistress. This giant green forests sits to the west of downtown, as ever present as the skyscrapers and, on clear days which are every day now, the craggy mountains beyond. The difference is there’s no cheating involved when you roam its forests, stroll along its bay and take in its skyline views.

On one of those sunny days that make you wonder why the entire world doesn’t want to live in Canada, a bus dropped me off at the west end of downtown. It’s a nice 10-minute walk around Coal Harbour to the park entrance. The view from the entrance is one of the great urban sights in the world. The fancy boats from the Vancouver Yacht Club ring a bay with the steel and glass skyscrapers of downtown beyond. The view of San Francisco from the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge is one view that surpasses. So does Rio from Corcovado. That’s about it.

Opened in 1888, Stanley Park is 1,000 acres, lined by a 5.5-mile seawall and filled with a half million trees, some as high as 250 feet. More than 120 miles of jogging/biking/rollerblading/loitering paths snake through the park. The place is 10 percent larger than Central Park in New York.

I spent a couple hours in the Vancouver Aquarium, not nearly as cool as the one in Monterrey, Calif., but great if you’re interested in what fish survive in the freezing Canadian Arctic. I oohed and aahed at the baby baluga whales and the otters who were curled up asleep on their backs in the corner of their pool.

There’s also a remarkable Amazon section that’s as humid as the one I experienced when I visited the jungle a couple times. What I never saw in the Amazon was Vancouver’s prize creature. This arapaima looks like a 13-foot anaconda badly in need of a diet and a makeover. It has a head like a carp. It’s the largest fresh-water fish in the world and was a spitting image of some sports agents I’ve known.

I walked back along the harbor as the setting sun shined in my face. Hockey fans wearing Finnish and Swedish jerseys playfully harassed each other on the jogging path. Tiny dogs scooted up the walk wearing little red Canada sweaters. Within 15 minutes I was back in the middle of the fray, fighting through massive crowds on downtown streets cut off from traffic and making my way to Earl’s for some killer sushi and fish tacos with a pint of London Pride.